Aging

Downsizing the Family Home It’s a rite of passage almost no one will escape: the difficult, emotional journey of downsizing your or your aging parents’ home. Here, nationally syndicated home columnist Marni Jameson sensitively guides readers through the process, from opening that first closet, to sorting through a lifetime’s worth of possessions, to selling the homestead itself. Using her own personal journey as a basis, she helps you figure out a strategy and create a mindset to accomplish the task quickly, respectfully, rewardingly—and, in the best of situations, even memorably. Throughout, she combines her been-there experience with insights from national experts—antiques appraisers, garage-sale gurus, professional organizers, and psychologists—to offer practical wisdom and heartwarming advice so you know with certainty what…

No matter what your resolutions for 2015, books can help. The right book can amuse, teach, reassure, or even heal. The term “bibliotherapy,” from the Greek biblion (books) and therapeia (healing), was coined in 1916 by Unitarian minister Samuel McChord Crothers. Books were therapeutic tools in military hospitals during the two world wars, and clinical bibliotherapy is still popular in treating mental illness, often in combination with medical approaches. Libraries also support “creative bibliotherapy,” mining fiction and poetry for their healing capabilities. The School of Life, philosopher Alain de Botton’s brainchild, is a London hub for studying how to live. Classes, secular sermons, and a library of recommended reading tackle subjects like job satisfaction and creativity. The School also offers…

“In any given year, almost 30% of the U.S. population will be caring for an ill, disabled, or aging friend or family member.” So we are informed by Ariel Gore in her new memoir The End of Eve (Hawthorne Books, March). She goes on to explain: “The typical caregiver, it turns out, is me: An adult female with children of her own caring for her widowed mother.” Gore is the publisher and editor of the alternative parenting magazine Hip Mama and the author of seven previous works of fiction and nonfiction. Her latest book about caring for her mother is not a how-to. While she beautifully details the turbulent years after her mother, Eve, was diagnosed with Stage IV lung…